The Iran War

At the United Nations for a millennium summit, President Clinton paced back and forth along the halls, impatiently waiting for Iranian President Muhammad Khatami to appear. Clinton was staging one of his classic photo ops, one where he and Khatami would “accidentally” meet and a symbolic handshake would result in a new diplomatic understanding between the US and Iran. This followed almost two years of backdoor diplomacy with Iran after the Iranians attacked the U.S. base at Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing nineteen Americans. Clinton had already made a down payment on the handshake, Madeleine Albright apologized publicly to the Islamic Republic for past American actions in the region and the administration lifted some of the sanctions imposed on Iran. For his trouble Clinton got stood up at the UN, Supreme Ruler Ali Khamenei decided outgoing Clinton had served the Mullah’s purposes and had nothing left to offer. Score one for Iran in the war that they initiated on November 1979. Iran has scored hit after hit in this war, one most Americans are blissfully unaware that we are even fighting. This is because we aren’t fighting; we are talking and have been through five different administrations. Carter talked when the hostages were taken from our Embassy; Reagan talked when they captured more Americans in Lebanon and then killed 300 more Americans at another Embassy. Nevertheless Reagan was the only President to fire a shot in this war, when Iran tried to blockade the Persian Gulf we sunk half their navy. That did not stop their movement on the ground. Setting up Hezbollah and Hamas has given Iran a military presence in Gaza and Lebanon, and Iran is poised to regain control of Lebanon through its Syrian ally. Iran has also strengthened ties to almost every other Islamist terrorist organization. Iran’s goals in the region are plainly stated by the Mullahs:

1. The complete destruction of Israel
2. A Muslim (Shia Iranian) Caliphate

Towards those ends Iran has some secondary goals.

1. Shame the US into leaving the region.
2. The destruction of all democracy in the region, (Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq)
3. Obtain nuclear capability.

Now we are to believe it is the United States’ best interest to hold more talks with Iran. What do we have to bargain with? We have already held out all kinds of bribes to the Mullahs to get them to give up the bomb resulting in nothing but the promise of more talks. We want them to leave Iraq alone. They want us to leave Iraq period. What can we offer them to stop, especially since they appear to be winning, at least winning the hearts and minds of America’s left? The left has already championed the Iranian goal of kicking us out of Iraq. When the American public has already voted for cut and run we would look pretty stupid offering that option to the Iranians. Can we offer them Afghanistan? They must figure that once we are out of Iraq it can safely be left to Sadr to finish the job of gaining control for the greater Shia Caliphate. The Jihadist can then go to Afghanistan to destroy that annoying democracy. They don’t need us to abandon Afghanistan, make it tough on the Americans and they will cut and run from Afghanistan as well. Iran will most assuredly ask us to abandon Israel although the left is not quite willing to do that yet. They only need to kill one or two more ministers to take back Lebanon so we can’t even offer them Lebanon. The only other carrot we can offer Tehran is to go ahead and let them get their nukes. Is that even an option? Based on the situation so far Tehran should have every reason to believe we will do nothing to prevent them from reaching that goal. On top of that, what incentive does Iran have to actually abide by whatever agreements they agree to? None. Yet that old saw that you must have dialog still stands, so we may see President Bush wandering the halls next, waiting for the Mullahs to deliver.

The Iran War

Amir Taheri at Gulf News explains from a military point of view why Iran coaxed Syria into assassinating Gamayel or else just ordered their agents or Hezbollah to carry it out. Basically in the Iran American war both sides see Lebanon as crucial. The Americans need a Democracy that will do what is in Lebanon’s best interest, and having a state within a state that puts it’s Iranian master’s interest ahead of Lebanon’s is obviously not in Lebanon’s best interests. The Iranians need control of Lebanon in order to keep its proxy army on Israel’s border so that at any time they can unleash a firestorm for whatever reason they deem necessary. However both Iran and Syria do not count on the following:

Rather than watch with folded arms as Iran and Syria annex Lebanon, Israel would feel obliged to take action. It is clear that Syria would be the immediate target of such action.

Mr. Taheri thinks that the next war will be an Israeli Syrian one. While I agree my thinking was that for political reasoning and due to the fact that Israel was perceived to have lost the Hezbollah Israeli War Assad would be dumb enough to try and take back the Golan Heights.

Update: Amir Taheri on the stupidity of talking to the Iranian regime.

Assad's not that stupid.

Many were doubting a Syrian connection to yesterday’s assassination of Anti-Syrian and Christian Lebanese Minister Pierre Gamayel, again and again people would say Assad’s not that stupid. Apparently he is. Blacksmiths of Lebanon reports this incredible news.

Al Seyassah daily learned from authoritative sources in Beirut, that one of the editors of the Syrian National News Agency (SANA) placed a phone call to a pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper at 3:05 pm on Tuesday. The caller inquired about the details of the assassination of Lebanese Minister for Industry Pierre Gemayel, raising eyebrows at the Lebanese newpaper. The timing of phone call was 55 minutes before the assassination was carried out.

Update:

From what I’m hearing on the Middle East blogs Al Seyassah is not a credible source. Zman’s comment on the story at Sand Monkey is common:

Oh my God SM!

I love your blog and the links you always provide , but I beg you, Only not “Al Seyassah” newspaper! Have you ever read their online version for more than a week? I congratulate you if you can. They make up news about EVERYTHING and EVERYONE, sometimes you think that you are reading the Arabic version of “The Onion” except that “The Onion” is really funny and this one is so cheap! Some of the stories they create about “conspiracies” in the Middle East are just hilarious! They always have a “well-connected” person in every presidential palace in the Middle East , and of course , their very close sources in the White House!

NOTE: I am not defending anyone here, I just wanted to to say that “Al Seyassah” is the last source on earth that one can quote. Check what they write about Egypt and what stories they make about Iraq and you’ll find yourself laughing in 10 minutes.

P.S They also never have any proofs of their claims against any country, because their evidences always get “confiscated” - I told you they are in the middle of a huge , endless conspiracy theory starting from the USA and stretching through the Middle East - and they know all about it :)

Iran War

Anti-Syrian and Christian Lebanese Minister Pierre Gamayel has been assassinated. Why? Well Hezbollah wants more power in governmental affairs and was planning massive protests to demand them, rather than rely on something as mundane and anti-Islamic as an election. Syria and Iran want the Lebanese government disbanded; a Democratic Lebanon is as much a threat to the tyrants as a Democratic Iraq. Should Hezbollah kill two more ministers the government will dissolve for lack of a quorum. Does Lebanon realize it is at war with Syria, and therefore at war with Iran? We don't, I can hardly expect them to acknowledge the fact, but trust me, they know. May Mr.Gamayel rest in peace.

Updates from the blog From Beirut to the Beltway (Hattip Sandmonkey)

Update. Angry crowds are gathering outside the St Joseph hospital and chanting anti-Aoun and anti-Hizbullah slogans. As Anton Effendi said, this assassination guarantees that any street protest now will devolve into clashes. The Kataeb party, of which Gemayel is a member, is calling on people to excercise self restraint.

With this assassination, March 14 has lost a member of parliament and a cabinet minister. For the Assad regime, one less March 14 vote means one less vote to ratify the international tribunal.

The eyes now are on the UN Security council, which must endorse the international tribunal as soon as possible

Update 2. Syrian-installed president Emile Lahoud has canceled the November 22nd independence day celebrations to mourn the loss of what he now referred to as a minister. Not long ago, he considered Gemayel and the rest of cabinet illegitimate following the resignation of the Shia ministers and the pro-Lahoud minister.

Meanwhile, Interior minister Ahmad Fatfat has accused Syria of standing behind Gemayel's assassination.

Update 3. Geagea has called on Lahoud to resign immediately, accusing him of acting as a cover for the terrorist attacks. He also called on the Amal and Hizbullah ministers to return to the cabinet.

Update 4 (11am EST). The crowds outside the hospital are calling on people and March 14 to take to the streets.

Meanwhile, gunmen have fired shots at the office of another March 14 minister, Michel Pharaon in Ashrafieh.

It looks like March 14 is under attack.

March 14 leaders will meet tonight to decide on a course of action.

Update 5. A distraught Amin Gemayel (Pierre's father) addressed the crowds. He asked all those who loved Pierre to preserve the cause he died for. He called for self-restraint so not to desecrate what he said is the cause for freedom. He asked everyone to use this night to pray and think about the meaning of martyrdom, and how to protect this country, away from revenge and irresponsible actions.

" We want the Lebanese cause to triumph. I wish upon all those who loved Pierre to safeguard the cause", he said.

Update 6 (11:40 EST). Walid Jumblatt visited the hospital and have a short statement amid anti-Aoun and anti-Nasrallah chants. He affirmed that the international tribunal is coming and warned against civil strife. "They want to create civil strife... We will triumph. We will not let them drag us to sedition," he said.

"As we were on that great day (March 14) with Pierre in the lead, peaceful and democratic for Lebanon, we will remain," he added.

Update: Abu Takla comments at Michael J Totten's blog.

one more to go, not 2. If they assassinate one more minister, the cabinet is automatically dissolved, because it would lack the two-thirds + 1 it needs to be constitutional.

And they did try. Anti-Syrian and Christian Lebanese Minister Michel Pharaon was also targeted today.

Our Friend Israel

This is a week old but I just saw it. Hat tip Buck.

It's 1938 and Iran is Germany and it's racing to arm itself with atomic arms.

Video of a speech Benjamin Netanyahu gave at the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly (UJC-GA) at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Monday. The canary in the coal mine but no one is paying attention.

America's Second Defeat

We may have lost in Iraq. The death knell sounded the night of November 7th and Iran, Syria, and Iraq all heard it. This is just like Vietnam when we cut their funding and the resulting mess left a legacy that all our future allies remember; America can’t be trusted. We will cut and run. Osama saw this and decided we are a paper tiger that can’t handle anything difficult. Nothing has changed, if anything its gotten worse. Today if we can’t win a war in a few months without casualties we will take our ball and go home. What’s different about Iraq is that the bully will follow us home.

Michael Ledeen points out today at NRO that the Iraqis are looking to mend any fences with Iran and now are afraid to be seen helping America because they know we have already abandoned them with this election. He also points out that until we face the fact that the war in Iraq encompasses Iran and Syria we can not win. The only solution is to take the war to our enemies, especially Iran, but instead what we will do is sit down with the Mullahs and discuss their surrender terms.

Update:

I had missed this but the much heralded Iraq Study Group (Baker-Hamilton Commission) has been stacked with anti-war advocates. Michael Rubin at the Weekly Standard reported in October on who some of these are.

Raad Alkadiri, for example, has repeatedly defined U.S. motivation for Iraq’s liberation as a grab for oil. Raymond Close, listed on the Iraq Study Group’s website as a ‘freelance analyst,’ is actually a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which, in July 2003, called for Vice President Dick Cheney’s resignation for an alleged conspiracy to distort intelligence, which they said had been uncovered by none other than Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The following summer, Close posited that ‘Bush and the neocons’ had fabricated the charge ‘that the evil Iranian mullahs inspired and instigated the radical Shia Islamist insurgency.’ To Close, the problem was not Iranian training and supply of money and sophisticated explosives to terrorists, but rather neoconservatism.

Abandonment seems even more likely now.

Our Friends the British

It's worse in Britain than we in the US thought. And we thought it was pretty bad what with Red Ken, MP Galloway, little public support for the battle in Iraq, homegrown Islamist terrorists, and Prince Charles conversion to Islam. Now Azarmehr at the blog For a democratic secular Iran points out the failings of the British Police and the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

A group called Vigil, have infiltrated one of the most extremist groups in Britain, the radical al-Muhajiroun group, headed by Omar Bakri Mohammed, yet they claim the British police are just not interested in their evidence.

It has also been emerged today that a senior executive officer, Abid Javid, in Immigration and Nationality Directorate which processes tens of thousands of asylum and visa applications every year, is a member of the fundamentalist Islamic group Hizb-ul Tahrir which believes in a worldwide Islamic state under Shariah law.

I have seen tens of genuine asylum applications by bonafide secular Iranian political activists refused by the Home Office, and yet unsavoury characters determined to break up the very fabric of this society keep pouring in. I always suspected infiltration in the Home Office by Islamic radicals and have written about it in the past. Today's news confirms my suspicions.

I'll pray for you England, but I'll have to leave time to pray for my own country which is not far behind yours on the path towards dhimmitude.

The Iranian War

When will most Americans realize we are at war with Iran? At NRO today Barbara Lerner editorialized that Where Rumsfeld Really Failed was in not convincing GWB that Iran and it's Syrian stooge are the problem and should be attacked. Iran is killing our troops today, right now, in Iraq, by equipping and training terrorist and fomenting civil war. That to me is a bigger issue than their damn nukes! October 20th was Qods (Jerusalem) Day and Iranian newspapers published articles calling for Muslims to

prepare for the great war, so as to completely wipe out the Zionist regime (Israel), and remove this cancerous growth.

Last I checked, and this may change with the Dems in power, but for now is not Israel an ally? If an ally is attacked, as Israel is daily by Iranian proxy forces Hezbollah and Hamas, should we not respond? But if the storming of our Embassy, taking Americans hostage, killing our troops, aiding terrorists, and violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which it signed isn’t enough to wage war I guess destroying a bunch of Jews won’t be either.

BTW did you hear about the mass kidnapping in Baghdad? Guess who? Mohammed at Iraq the Model will tell you who and why.

The mass abduction that shocked Baghdad yesterday was intended to be a clear message from Tehran-through its surrogates in Baghdad-to anyone who thinks productive dialogue with the Islamic republic over Iraq and Middle East peace is a possible option.

The operation was a show of victory and it was so smooth and perfect that neither the MNF nor the Iraqi military could do a thing to stop it.
And today the show continues with the assassination of the colonel who's in charge of internal investigation in the department of national police, also known as the police commandos, one day after an investigation was ordered.

Perhaps choosing a ministry like the higher education (which belongs to the Sunni Accord Front) is also a warning message to Sunni politicians who are preparing to send a delegation to Washington especially that the Accord bloc announced recently that they were looking forward to "clear the misunderstanding and mistrust" between them and the US administration to search for solutions for the situation in Iraq.

Did Iran misunderstand the American democracy?
Absolutely yes and Tehran is planning and working according to this faulty impression.

Iran now considers itself the victor and it will not negotiate for peace but instead will try to impose conditions to accept America's surrender.

Isn't Iraq an ally? At least until the Dems abandon them?

Our Friends the Egyptians

In Egypt they tried to have a demonstration against the Eid outrage that occurred not long ago. Sand Monkey sums up the result.

The egyptian police stopped a sexual harrassment demonstration- one that was protesting an incident that happend in front of that same police, who didn't lift a finger to stop it -, chased down demonstrators and journalists, arrested two of them and beat up the female one, and then blocked an internet blog. All on the same day! It seems that they are more interested in stopping people from protesting their inability to do their job, rather than actually doing it. Fan-freakin-tastic, no?

Rabaa Fahmy says what many in the ME think.

“The United States is responsible for all of this!” exclaimed Rabaa Fahmy, a staff lawyer for the Nadim Center who was also inside the Excelsior café.
“They cause these problems because they support our government. All of their propaganda about democracy is false because they make alliances with dictatorial regimes like ours.”

She has a point; allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt may do more harm than good. Maybe we should have a chat with our friend Mubarak.

Double Speak

George Orwell would be proud. Firebombing Muslims are “youths”. Blowing yourself up along with an Israeli falafel shop is “self defense”. Cutting off young girls heads is “charity”.

Hasanuddin allegedly returned from a visit to members of Philippines Islamist group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front with tales of how that organisation regularly staged bombings to coincide with Lebaran, the festival that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He later spoke with a preacher in Poso, Central Sulawesi, about whether such a plan could work in Indonesia, but expressed doubt about whether it was appropriate.

However, after further discussion with friends, he decided that beheading Christians could qualify as an act of Muslim charity.

A Religion that embraces death and global Jihad is a “Religion of Peace”. Up is “down”, good is “evil”, and Satan is “Allah”.

Our Friends the Egyptians

Imagine being arrested and the police interrogation going something like this.

"Do you pray?"

"What do you think of Christianity?"

"What is your opinion of Jesus? What about his apostles?"

Imagine being arrested because you voiced your opinions on a blog like mine. The charges?

•Spreading data and malicious rumors that disrupt public security
•Defaming the President of the United States
•Incitement to overthrow the country upon hatred and contempt
•Incitement to hate "Christianity" and breach of the public peace standards
•Highlighting inappropriate aspects that harm the reputation of the United States and spreading them to the public

What liberal is not guilty of at least a few of these charges? Thankfully this is not likely to happen anytime soon in America but in countries that practice Sharia this is not uncommon. You might think of Iran or the Sudan when you conjure up images like I describe above and you would be right, however the case I described above, substituting Islam and Mohammed for Christianity and Jesus, occurred in Egypt. Sandmonkey, my source of all the news from Egypt, alerted me to the case of Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman. While at Al Azhar University Mr. Soliman wrote what many considered anti-islamic posts on his blog. He was expelled and the University quickly turned him in to the authorities.

Not too long ago I posted about the government of Bahrain blocking the blog Mahmood's Den. We all signed a petition and quess what? The block was removed. We got Ganji released from an Iranian prison. Maybe we can get Abdelkareem released. Go to the Release Abdelkareem web site and sign the petition.

Victory! But for who?

James Robbins is afraid. “My greatest fear is that this Republican loss will be seen by our adversaries as a great victory.” Well they will because it is. They will try to force Bush to cut and run. They will scuttle NSA and CIA programs that are catching, interrogating, and holding terrorists. They will close Gitmo releasing the worst of the worst. They will talk and talk to Iran until Iran has its Nukes. It’s no great secret who the terrorist support as Deroy Murdock explains.

“Americans should vote Democrat,” said Jihad Jaara of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

“I tell the American people, vote for withdrawal” from Iraq, said Hamas’s Abu Abdullah.

“As Arabs and Muslims, we feel proud of this talk,” Islamic Jihad’s Muhammad Saadi said. “Very proud from the great successes of the Iraqi resistance. This success that brought the big superpower of the world to discuss a possible withdrawal.” Saadi explained that a U.S. pullout would “prove the resistance is the most important tool and that this tool works.”

As Rep. Jack Kingston (R., Ga.) recalled in the Washington Times, Zawahiri proposed a four-step blueprint for jihad. “The first stage: expel the Americans from Iraq,” wrote Zawahiri.

This country does not have the backbone to fight the Jihadist. That will come in time but much more American blood will have to be spilled before we develop the type of fortitude that saw us through the bloody battles of WWII.

Update: Our enemies are ecstatic about the Democrat victory.

Our Friend John Kerry

Hat tip Vince Aut Morire